“Wrong” doesn’t even come close…

I’ve seen this commercial multiple times in the past month and every single time I’ve reacted the same way. I’ve watched television in a number of different countries with less than conservative advertisements and no amount of nudity or discriminant dialog even comes close to touching this ad for Orangina, a tasty orange soda. It’s so wrong that I have decided to share and hopefully get feedback from those of you who haven’t been exposed to it repeatedly in the last month. So watch it and by all means comment whatever your reaction might be.

Warm fuzzy feelings and ancient spam

Last night I spent an hour or two reading through old e-mails saved in an old e-mail account to pass the time.  It was a bit like reading a journal you forgot you once kept but even better because in most cases both sides of the conversations are there for rediscovery. It makes me wish I had saved IM conversations too.

While scanning the folder I had long ago allocated for the electronic musing of my good friend Amy, I unearthed a few of the gems that make reading old e-mails worth the effort.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Wouldn’t it be weird if life really was a box of chocolates and we walked around in our little cubicles tasting each other until we’re all eaten up except for the very last chocolate and then he picks little pieces of himself off to make new chocolates and then the whole process begins again?  Wouldn’t that be weird?

Wouldn’t it be weird if we were born with shoes on, and instead of putting them on when we go out, we took them off?

Chantay, I am distraught and I feel as if I am a little blade of grass awaiting the lawnmower blade’s wrath.  It buzzes overhead, its menacing sound taunting me to run away quickly, knowing that I can’t because I am rooted in the soil of love.

Should I dance, sing, or perform one of my many novelty acts?

Well, thank you, Chantay, for ripping off each one of my fingernails and eating them with pleasure.

addlefoy,
Amy Harbottle
(“addlefoy” is my new word for “Bye, my friend.  Peace-Out.”)

“Chantay the Avenger”

Chantay Lanman is an avenger.
She avenges wrongdoing.
She inwardly wrestles with the wrongs of the world.
And she cries.
She puts one step forward.
And one step back.
Two-stepping across the terrors of the world.
In the arms of a cowboy.
She rides horses into the night.
Singing to them country songs.
Where America is free.
And freedom rings.
And she answers the telephone.
She has avenged evil.

Hello, world.

I suppose I should tell people that I’m here now…..

Next time you won’t ask

In the past week I’ve spent most of my time doing this and that while going here and there. This was mostly done offline and because you missed out on those events I will recap.

We bought an Xbox and Rock Band on a VERY expensive whim. It’s so much fun! We played until Colin couldn’t walk and my voice was reduced to a whisper. Not really a great financial choice but what the hell, we rarely do something like that.

Last Friday I watched Mama Mia! in the best cinema the Isle could offer. Unfortunately the best isn’t saying much when the only other “cinema” has one screen and barely seems to qualify. Regardless the lovely Voirrey and I had spent the better part of a week giddy with anticipation so we were just glad the movie was showing. I have to say, I’m a sucker for musicals and currently starved for entertainment, but I thought it was better than the critics said. Yes it was campy and silly and Pierce Brosnan did seem to be in pain every time he sang but that was all part of the charm! No, it isn’t the next Sound of Music or Hello, Dolly! but it is far more entertaining than a lot of other films to be released in the past year or so. Meryl Streep gave an impressive performance and I loved Colin Firth in his role. Although to be perfectly honest I tend to swoon like a girl half my age where Colin Firth is concerned. He’s so wonderfully English in every role.

My German family came to visit this week to finish their three week holiday in the UK. We hadn’t seen each other since we cut our honeymoon short and left Germany to come to the Isle back in November ’06. Although I lived with them twice in the past I had never been the host and was curious to see how two adults and three children would fit into our family for a few days. Naturally it was smooth sailing and we had a great visit. It was fun playing with the kids during the day and visiting with Uli and Stefan over drinks at the pub at night.  Even Storm enjoyed himself and behaved like a dear despite having never been around children. (He was my biggest concern but aside from being overwhelmed with keeping up with all seven of us he was a pro. The children called him King Storm and showered him with constant affection while Stefan took him on long walks throughout the day.)  They saw a bit of what the Isle has to offer and the weather managed not to suck too much so all was good. I would have liked a day or two more to visit but Colin and I are going to spend Christmas with them in Germany this year so we will see them soon.

I’ve been living on cranberry juice and more cranberry juice for my recent UTI. I don’t know how a person can drink liter after liter of something and yet never develop a tolerance for the taste. It’s unfortunate.

Oh! I watched WALL-E and have fallen head over heels in love with it as I’m sure everyone else has. It wasn’t at all what I expected and wow, what a treat. It was very funny, sweet, heartwarming and entertaining dispite very little dialogue. It was a refreshing break from children’s films that try to stuff the cuteness and so called humour down your throat. ( On a related note, I harbor intense hatred of the lewd inuendo they pepper into films aimed at the very young–movies that really should be as innocent as their rating suggests. Yes it’s funny for the adults but still wholelly viewable without abandoning their target audience. Perhaps it’s just me but if you suddenly realized Cinderella, Winnie the Pooh and Mary Poppins were full of carefully placed crass jokes wouldn’t that tarnish your love for the films a bit? Maybe not but I think so. There is plenty of time for that sort of thing after children turn eight, imo.)

Pearce turned one this week and it’s so hard to believe. I bought a few classic children books in the sturdy cardboard form so he could chew on them if the mood struck. Good times.  I met him ten months ago and fell in love a minute afterward. I think leaving him will be one of the hardest things when we move home.

I still haven’t cut my hair…so far avoiding mirrors has been working for me.

I’m sure there is more but I’ll spare you for now.

I’ll just hide all the mirrors…

I have short hair that grows faster than the average person. While I don’t know how much faster I have been told by most of my hair stylists in the past 8 years of the wonder that is my rapid growing hair. In addition it is far thicker than any person needs. The floors surrounding my salon chair always look like I’ve lost four inches instead of the trim I received.

I needed you to know that information so the following can be processed without confusion.

I haven’t had a haircut in nearly three months and it SHOWS! I have a tail and maybe a mullet….I’m very close to cutting my own hair and history shows that option should be filed under “ALWAYS a bad idea”. I missed my last appointment unexpectedly and then was busy with family visiting and traveling so I didn’t think about my hair for a while. That is until last week when I find that the ONLY salon I have used since I moved here has closed. Now I can think of nothing aside from the ridiculous state of my hair and getting in touch with the stylist who used to cut my hair.

Try not to worry excessively, I wouldn’t want you to lose too much sleep. I’ll keep you posted.

Quoteapalooza

1. Pick 20 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search/other search functions. Honor system B’s.

1. There’s nothing more toxic or deadly than a human child. A single touch could kill you.

2. You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn’t true. I know a lot about love. I’ve seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate… It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves… You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing.

3. “For June who loved this garden from Joseph who always sat beside her.” Some people do spend their whole lives together.

4. That’s ludicrous – The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese!

5. You go up to her room. She answers the door; now she will have been crying so her eyes will be all bloodshot and her nose will be all red and runny, but you look past all that. You stare purposefully into those red-rimmed, swollen eyes, and you say, “Eunice, my dear, there’s been a terrible mistake. I’ve behaved like a cad, a bounder! But now I see everything clearly and I’ve decided that Judy and I are gonna put you into a home.”

6. If the good Lord had intended us to walk he wouldn’t have invented roller-skates.

7. Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it’s on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you’ll miss.

8. You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone. You’ll see when you move out, it just sort of happens one day one day and it’s just gone. And you can never get it back. It’s like you get homesick for a place that doesn’t exist. I mean it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

9. Who is that? Nietzsche? So you stopped talking because of Friedrich Nietzsche? Far out.

10. Then let’s say God puts two people on Earth and they are lucky enough to find one another. But one of them gets hit by lightning. Well then what? Is that it? Or, perchance, you meet someone new and marry all over again. Is that the lady you’re supposed to be with or was it the first? And if so, when the two of them were walking side by side were they both the one for you and you just happened to meet the first one first or, was the second one supposed to be first? And is everything just chance or are some things meant to be?

11. What’s the Czech for “Do you love him”?

12. You should’ve gone to China, you know, ’cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.

13. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

14. Naked blonde walks into a bar with a poodle under one arm, and a two-foot salami under the other. The bartender says, I guess you won’t be needing a drink. Naked lady says…

15. I know your head aches; I know you’re tired; I know your nerves are as raw as meat in a butcher’s window. But think what you’re trying to accomplish. Think what you’re dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language, it’s the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative, and musical mixtures of sounds. And that’s what you’ve set yourself out to conquer Eliza. And conquer it you will.

16. Your looks have become a problem!

17. It’s a perfect moment. A soft light, a scent in the air, the quiet murmur of the city. A surge of love, an urge to help mankind overcomes her.

18. P: Look up “idiot” in the dictionary. You know what you’ll find?
H: A picture of me?
P: No! The definition of the word idiot, which you fucking are!

19. Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, not small, but valuable. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.

20. …So I said, ‘Sister, please, anyone could have confused ‘Hail Mary’ with ‘Proud Mary’ and besides, I do a very good Tina Turner!’

September already?

I’m such a slacker when it comes to blogging but the truth is, when given the choice, I prefer to read. So I may set out to write a post but rare is the day (obviously) when I pass up hundreds of news articles on Digg, gossip via Celebrity Smack and the like, and the ten to fifteen blogs I read regularly to write to the masses. (or the lack thereof.)

A “Manny” is a term of endearment invented by Colin and I to describe the bizarre behavior of the harmless locals. The following is a story about a Manny.

There is a man living down the road from us who owns a van. This van is solid white, ordinary and unremarkable in every way as far as my eyes can tell. The noteworthy bit comes from the man himself. He is constantly washing it. He gets his bucket of water and various supplies and walks to his parking spot which is located at the halfway point of Switzerland road and positioned between his neighbors cars. He will spend hours washing his white van even though it never looks dirty and what’s even more strange is that I’ve never noticed it missing from the parking spot. It makes Colin and I wonder if he ever even drives it. I can leave to run errands with him scrubbing away and return two to three hours later to the same scene: White van, cleaning supplies, bucket and man. The only difference is he’s progressed enough to be washing the opposite side of the van or windows. Some times Colin and I have discussed his behavior while watching his actions out of our passing window only to see the same events unfolding the following day. How bored do you have to be before you willingly wash your clean van multiple times a week?? I pray I never find out. My favorite development in the saga of our curious neighbor happened last week. I returned from the town center to the sight of the man stretched out in the road, fully on his back, WASHING THE UNDERSIDE OF THE VAN! What a sight it was! I used to think he was a peculiar neighbor with a puzzling hobby but now I just hope he manages to get the van up to his standards. That’s dedication.

In other news, Colin and I are joining our friends Adrian and Lindy on a trip to England to take part in a Murder Mystery weekend. As far as I can tell it is like a real life, two-day version of clue taking place at our hotel with everyone trying to figure out “whodunit”. We’re all excited since we’ve never done anything like this but I can’t help but feel a bit nervous. I remember old episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Matlock where people went to play this sort of game on a dark stormy night only to find one (or two!) of the group dead and the power out (due to the severity of the storm). Now I’m not afraid of dying, I just don’t want to test the power of my detective skills in a real situation, lest they prove only reliable when watching CSI and the like. (It’s usually the overly sweet woman who seems to like everyone but when her back is to the crowd is known to alternate between evil glares and crazy-murder-fueled smiles. It’s never the quiet creepy guy. Wholly misunderstood, he’s the one to save everyone despite locking him out for being a creepy ass stranger and arguing with the dead minutes before the murders. Eat your heart out, Columbo.)

I’m going to start looking for a part time job next week so if you hear of any from your connection on the Isle, let me know.

Oh, please keep my grandfathers in your prayers/thoughts. Grandpapa broke his leg in two places last week and had surgery today to screw a plate over one of the breaks. It’s supposed to be a long recovery and he doesn’t like sitting around. Papa has to have surgery to remove a massive kidney stone in the next couple of weeks. Routine surgery I’m sure but Papa only has one kidney so I get nervous.

How bout them hogs!?! Arkansas vs Troy tomorrow night bringing the 2007 season to a start. We are six hours ahead of Central time so it’s back to staying up all night to listen to the games online. We did it in Germany and we’ll do it every year we stay here. I just wish we could be at the games or watch them on tv but audio is better than nothing.

Hope everything is good in your lives!

Ahh, Love or Logic of the Provider

Sunday night Colin and I were settling into bed when I started my nightly lotion ritual. I noticed I was running low on a locally made lotion I bought back in April. The following conversation followed:

Me: I need to buy more of this lotion, I love it.
Colin: Is it expensive?
Me: (skirting the issue) Well, not exactly expensive but not as cheap as the other stuff I use. It’s a higher quality.
Colin: So how much is it?
Me: Last time I bought the small tub so I wouldn’t waste money if I didn’t like it. (insert sweet wife smile) The small tub was £7 but this time I want to buy the large size because it has more than double the amount and the lotion is just that great. I believe the large tub was £15. It’s a good deal and a great product.
Colin: (thoughtful silence)…….I’ll authorize an invoice for the small tub, that’s all you need.
Me: what?
Colin: I’ll give you an invoice for the small one. £7 is all the money you can spend on the lotion.
Me: (angry silence)…..I’ll give you a Suck It invoice.

It’s a good thing I have Colin, no one else would want to put up with me. haha. (For the record Colin doesn’t care about the price of lotion. He just cares about giving me a hard time whenever possible.)

Best of Intentions

Well so much for weekly posts, I don’t think I’ll ever understand where all the time goes.

The weather is warming up here but thankfully it won’t get as hot as it does in Arkansas. The heat/humidity is one thing I don’t miss about home. I do miss my dog Baylor, however, so with the help of my father we have set in motion events that will hopefully culminate with Baylor moving here. It’s a long process and we aren’t even sure we’ll be able to find a flat that allows animals but we are moving ahead regardless. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever lived without animals and I have to say, I’m not a fan. Plus, Baylor will love it here, it’s a very dog friendly place.

Ok here is an entertainment update complete with video clips!

The Who!! Of all the great British bands of yore, The Who are very close to the top of my list. (second only to the Beatles.) I never really thought I’d have the opportunity to see a show though. Then Colin and I moved to a tiny island where Pete Townshend regularly vacationed as a child. This year also happens to be the 100th year of the TT, a race that has turned our sleepy Isle into a swarming mass of people and buzzing motorcycles. The Who played at the Peel Bay music festival, 40 years after the last time they played here. The show was GREAT! I would have been happy with anything halfway decent but they rocked harder and longer then bands half their age. The also looked so great and healthy…not what I was expecting of two 63 year old men with a history of heroin and other heavy substance abuse. Everything went so well, our seats were excellent and they played all my favorites. Very good times.

As I mentioned, it was TT time and that meant several things. One is there were thousands and thousands and THOUSANDS of non residents here. Most of them had some sort of motorcycle with them which means the noise level jumped a notch or ten as did the air pollution. To entertain the throng various amusements and attractions were readily available. There were helicopter tours, the music festival, a carnival, and stunt shows. For a place that was slow paced and quite a couple of weeks ago, things really picked up.

Ok, I’ll leave you with some short video clips squished together of various TT happenings. Sorry for the bumpy viewing!

The Red Arrows (UK Aerobatic guys)

Superbike TT race.

Sidecar race. These guys are crazy.

Wild ride at the fun fair on the promanade.

When you’re strange…

Ok, I’ve been monumentally bad at keeping in touch via phone with friends and family. There are so many people to call and every conversation ends up being over an hour. It is exhausting trying (and failing) to keep up. Hopefully this blog will help a little in bridging the gap. If not, just give me a bit of time, I will call soon.

In the interest of making this a place where I censor myself (and what makes me “me”) as little as possible I am going to lay my quirks and habits on the table. Yes, I’m strange but I really am fine with it. Feel free to point and laugh.

• I have the tendency to eat condiments as a meal. Anything that isn’t a liquid is fair game: a can of black olives, a jar of green olives, pickled okra, martini onions, garlic stuffed green olives, maraschino cherries…the list goes on. I don’t eat them all at once though. It’s usually one can/jar for the meal. Colin’s potential reaction to me serving him a jar of mustard with a spoon for dinner forces me to do this mostly while he is at work. Even when eating “normally” I tend to focus on one item. The appetizer menu is my favorite, I love having a plate of one thing (calamari! fries! fried okra!). I have the tendency to order two of the same side instead of a full meal when eating out. Once I lock on to one thing I will eat it day after day until I cannot look at it any longer. ( My current obsession is with dried apple chips. They are beyond fabulous.) I will go to great lengths to satisfy a craving because I know from experience that it won’t just go away.

• Lately I have been very interested in ethical living. I’ve spent a great deal of time making changes to my everyday actions and I’m still in the process of nailing down what I believe. I’m sure there will be a post on this topic in the future. It’s been a while coming with several things pushing me into this direction. This past March I started reading the No Impact Man blog. I find all of it extremely fascinating and I’m excited about the national attention he’s getting in America. Not to climb fully onto my new soapbox but America, as a whole, is widely in the dark when it comes to ecological actions. Try this. (In case you are wondering, no I haven’t watched an Inconvenient Truth….yet.) In the same general topic I have a plant that isn’t dying (an amazing feat!) as well as my new herb garden, completely formed, planted and cared for by my fumbling hands.

• In the past few months I have a new love for reality television. This covers a wide spectrum of shows such as Shear Genius, Top Design, ANTM, Top Chef, Biggest Loser, Work Out, Split Ends, and even Flavor of Love: Charm School and Fear Factor reruns. Sadly there are even more still. This year is also the first year I’ve watched American Idol every week. (I like Blake but I don’t think he’ll win.) I like to think I am drawn to these shows because I love documentaries but maybe I just love trashy tv and gay men bringing the drama. Oh as far as tv goes I just watched the newest episode of The Office and I could float away right now. I’m so very happy.

That may be enough for now. Pretty soon I may be adding links to my favorite blogs and the like. I’m not sure yet.